User talk:Jerry Strauss
Hi there! Welcome to the Wild Cards Wiki, and thank you for your edit to the page! There's a lot to do around here, so I hope you'll stay with us and make many more improvements. :' ' is a great first stop, because you can see what pages other people have been editing, and where you can help. :Questions? You can ask at the Help desk or on the associated with each article, or post a message on my talk page! :Need help? The Community Portal has an outline of the site, and pages to help you learn how to edit. :Please every time you edit, so that we can recognise you! Don't forget to leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! I'm really happy to have you here, and look forward to working with you! HugoHelp (Talk) 2013-03-23T19:23:27]] Pondering Page Titles I've been occasionally trimming a few of the article names with "The" on the front of them: "The Oddity," "The Envoy," and so on. Although those character names do often get prefixed with "The" in many cases, they also don't in cases where those characters are being addressed directly by other characters. The end result is it's cleaner to link to articles without than with, and the upshot is that they appear in alphabetical order under the first letter of their name or pseudonym rather than under "T" in category lists. So taking a leaf from the way Wikipedia does things, this was the sensible way to go. Which brings me to my question. How would you prefer to see the names as page titles? Seeing as we can override the page titles, and using Envoy as an example, which one looks best to you: *'Envoy' (default article name - no override) *'Envoy, The' (The GURPS Wild Cards supplement does this) *'The Envoy' (common to a few characters, possibly confusing to some viewers who follow category links) On a related note, I've been thinking about the Turtle as well. He's often just referred to as the Turtle, which I think is a bit easier to use for the article name than the full, self-proclaimed "Great and Powerful" bit. What do you think? -- WarBlade (talk) 10:50, June 2, 2013 (UTC) If I had been around when this wiki was first started I would have titled pages something like this: David Harstein '--' The Envoy or David "The Envoy" Harstein I like to give their real names priority because Wild Cards emphasizes a real people with superpowers approach. IE: The character's personality is more important than their superpower. Additionally, I would have all the character info box headers have the characters real name (unless it's unknown), remove the Real Name entry in the box, and then have any noms de guerre listed under either an Alias or Wild Card Name listing. (I prefer Alias, because not all alias's are due to the WC). Actual page names (and URLs) would then also have used the character's Real Name. Now, some WC characters real names are never really used, so an exception would possibly be made for these. That being said, that's now how the wiki was originally put together. Now, back to your question; out of the three choices, I prefer The Envoy, but if the only way to get the character to show up on list pages properly is to do Envoy, The, I'd probably suggest that. After typing all that up, I decided to take a look at the original GURPS RPG sourcebook and the Mutants and Masterminds RPG sourcebook and see the format they went with in those. GURPS uses the format Envoy, The (David Harstein). M&M uses the characters most common name, be tha real or assumed: Jay Ackroyd; 'The Great and Powerful Turtle. ' Ultimately, I think I'd prefer a version combining the GURPS and M&M listing: Character's Most Commonly Used Name (Main Alias) Then, list any additional Aliases under the Alias field in the info box. In regards to your specific Turtle question, I actually prefer having the full name listed in the title (Same would apply for Black Tongue), but as long as it's listed in the Alias field of the infobox,it's not a big deal. Those longer names are their 'formal Wild Card names' and, while not fully used all the time, seem to make for the proper title. Jerry Strauss (talk) 17:12, June 2, 2013 (UTC) :I've just tried the usual style of overriding the page name on the Turtle article, and am a bit puzzled as to why it still just follows the page name. I might have to dig a bit deeper on that one. Anyway, your final preferences are pretty much in line with the way the wiki is already structured. Add to that, Wikipedia tends to identify subjects by their most common name, so that's easy for the most part. No "Envoy, The" etc. - cool. That's fine with me. Now, if I can get the override to work, then things should look a whole lot better. -- WarBlade (talk) 23:51, June 3, 2013 (UTC) ::Ah, whoops. I used a system to override the casing, not the actual title. I'll look for an alternative. -- WarBlade (talk) 23:55, June 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Okay. I've figured it out. I need to edit the Common.js file, but that requires at least Sysop level access. So I'm going to leave the title on the front of Turtle for now. -- WarBlade (talk) 00:04, June 4, 2013 (UTC) Maybe it got lost in all my rambling, but I do prefer 'Envoy, The' over just 'Envoy'. Once you get the permissions you need, I think we should change the title to 'Envoy, The (David Harstein)". Jerry Strauss (talk) 02:11, June 4, 2013 (UTC) :There's a problem with that idea. The global standard for disambiguation clarifiers is to put the clarification term in parenthesis, so a title like that would suggest there are other subjects that could be referenced as "Envoy" on the wiki. For example Judas where a precedent exists for the clarifier on the Judas (Harry Matthias) article (and in the GURPS sourcebook for that matter) because of Golden Boy's informal pseudonym potentially confusing the characters. -- WarBlade (talk) 04:23, June 4, 2013 (UTC) :Oh, ok, well maybe use { } or [ ]? Jerry Strauss (talk) 11:47, June 4, 2013 (UTC) Questions Wild Cards RPG: Mutants & Mastermind System Hi Jerry, In your previous comments you mentioned having both RPG books. I have one of them, but I'm not familiar with the Mutants & Mastermind system at all. I know D&D, so I get the gist of the info but not all the nuances. Sorry, I don't know if you are familiar or just have the books for additional character info like I did. If you are familiar with the system let me know because I have some questions. If not, then I'm sorry for taking up space on your page. Nameless Wikia contributer (talk) 15:33, August 2, 2013 (UTC) I'm not really familiar with it. I have the WC books because they are WC books. I do have a pdf of the core book to better understand the stats, but i've never played it or anything. I could try and answer any questions you have. Jerry Strauss (talk) 01:47, August 3, 2013 (UTC) I have both of the GURPS Wild Cards books, as well as the core rules and GURPS Supers, so I can interpret the content of the GURPS books. It can get a little sketchy in some areas though. The first GURPS Wild Cards book is based on an obsolete edition of GURPS Supers rules, while the Aces Abroad campaign was based around the later edition. -- WarBlade (talk) 02:42, August 3, 2013 (UTC) I also have the GURPS books and i'm fairly knowledgable in that system. I used to play it long ago. In fact, that's how I first discovered WC Jerry Strauss (talk) 03:39, August 3, 2013 (UTC) I am mainly curious about Strength, Enhanced Strength, and Super Strength and how it all works. You have Carnifex who has a strength of 24 and no mention of having enhanced strength or super strength. You have Black Shadow who has a strength of 22/14 and is listed with having Enhanced Strength 8. You have Golden Boy who has a strength of 34/14 and has Enhanced Strength of 20 and Super Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 22 tons). So . . . if I understand what my book says Enhanced Strength basically gives the characters the increased ability bonuses, but Super Strength gives the lifting capabilities. Is that right? Also, does anyone know why Carnifex has such a high strength score without having any enhanced strength? How does the M&M system handle increased ability scores? I'm only familiar with how D&D does it. Starting off ability scores max out at 18 + any racial modifiers. After that you can increase the ability 1 point every 4 levels. Also do the lifting capabilities among strength scores the same as D&D? Strength of 15 means you have a heavy load max of 200lbs or a strength of 20 gives you a max of 400lbs. Nameless Wikia contributer (talk) 19:51, August 3, 2013 (UTC) M&M seems to make their super strength more complicated than perhaps it needs to be. I'll take a look at it and get back to you. Jerry Strauss (talk) 21:48, August 8, 2013 (UTC) Thanks for doing so Jerry, but I think I've figured it out. I just got myself the 2nd edition M&M handbook. This is what I've concluded. Unlike D&D where you role a d6 to get ability scores with a max starting ability score of 18, M&M you buy the ability points with power points. So when Carnifex was made they just bought 14 points to put in Strength, giving him a 24 Strength and just bought him one power Regeneration 20. I finally understand the Super Strength ranks. Each rank of Super Strength gives the character a +5 modifer to their strength in terms of lifting capabilities, not damage or jumping modifers. So while Golden Boy has the attack and damage bonuses of a character with 34 Strength, he has the lifting capabilities of a character with 54 Strength. So I think I got it. 2nd Ed. seems complicated. 3rd edition looks a lot nicer, except that they list peak human strength as a rank of 7, which according to the Strength chart gives a max strength of 3 tons. That seems a bit too much for peak human to me. I do have another question though. And sense your knowledgable about the system maybe you know. Is there any reason for characters to have a lot of unspent Power Points? I was looking at some of the SCARE Sheets and some of the characters barely spent more than half of their Power Points. Makes the characters look incomplete. Thanks for your help so far. Nameless Wikia contributer (talk) 22:30, August 8, 2013 (UTC) I'm guessing due to Wild Cards more realistic, lower leveled characters, they created the characers acurately instead of worrying about spending all the available points. I looked at the 3rd edition book, and the GM does award additional points as experiance, but this wouldn't explain the values you mentioned. Jerry Strauss (talk) 18:01, August 18, 2013 (UTC) Thanks Thanks for tagging that nonsense for deletion. -- WarBlade (talk) 13:02, August 16, 2013 (UTC) How do such pages actually get deleted,anyway? Jerry Strauss (talk) 18:02, August 18, 2013 (UTC) An account with sysop or higher level access has an additional delete option along with "Edit," "Move," etc. So we wait for HugoHelp to return unless someone from the Wikia staff comes in and removes it first. -- WarBlade (talk) 22:00, August 18, 2013 (UTC) Group Information Box I expect to be making a series of edits soon, and likely updating a number of articles about groups of people as I go. I got back to thinking about a group infobox in the style of the character infobox, and the entries so far are: |Name = |Image = |OfficialName = |Aliases = |GroupType = |Purpose = |Status = |BaseOfOperations = |PlaceOfFormation = |PlaceOfDefunction = |PeriodActive = |EventParticipant = |FirstAppearance = |PreviousMention = |FinalAppearance = |Creator = And my questions to you are: #I'm a bit stumped on how best to handle dates - when formed, disbanded, or period active etc. - and I'm currently leaning towards a period active field, but I'm open to suggestions on which route you think is best. Any ideas? #Have I missed anything (besides intentionally omitted notable individuals)? :D -- WarBlade (talk) 06:23, January 10, 2014 (UTC) To keep it consistent with individual entries, I like the idea of a First and Final Appearances (book name/number). I do also, however, like the When Active (years) idea. Due to some books being/having flashbacks, I don't think this is necessarily redundant. On a few related notes, I've noticed that we have at least two info box formats for characters. It seems all the latest Tor characters are using a different format than the older ones. Were you considering updating those? Also, I see you recently updated the Red Army Faction page, but the page itself has a spelling error (Fraction) that I don't see how to fix. Would we need to create a new page, transfer all data over, then just delete the old one? Jerry Strauss (talk) 00:37, January 11, 2014 (UTC) ::The old pink adaptable infobox used for characters was superseded by the hard coded blue one, so feel free to update to the blue one. I've mostly stuck to updating them for notable characters, and haven't bothered for a few of the obscure characters unless I'm going through and copy editing the body text of those articles. ::Red Army Fraction is not a spelling error, or at least that's the way Victor Milán wrote the group's name in "Puppets." He appears to have derived that from the German name, Rote Armee Fraktion, and real world English versions of the name sometimes use Fraction rather than Faction as well. -- WarBlade (talk) 11:53, January 11, 2014 (UTC) Game of Thrones Wiki Affiliate FYI, I've been asked if I'd be interested in making the Wild Cards Wiki an affiliate of the Game of Thrones Wiki. Communication here. -- WarBlade (talk) 03:40, February 17, 2014 (UTC) Fine by me Jerry Strauss (talk) 03:58, February 17, 2014 (UTC)